Last year I was battling the greatest entertainment system the world ever unleashed. A student would listen to my pleas, say they would get up, and then immediately fuck off on their phone again. Why would you play in the gym when you could sit against the wall and watch endless entertainment personally curated for your tastes?
Now I battle boredom, and that’s a winnable fight. Now when I give my two chicks speech [telling pupils they might not like doing something, but they have to], they usually respond by participating. That’s because the other option is boredom. Sit there, do nothing, and look out the non-existent windows our school doesn’t have. I’m not fighting against brilliant social scientists getting paid millions to figure out ways to capture human attention, I’m fighting against sitting on your ass doing nothing. And my class is awesome compared to boredom.
Now don’t get me wrong. This isn’t a magic bullet. Banning phones won’t save Gen-Z. I once watched our dean hand cellphones back to students in the cafeteria. When she rolled the cellphone cart through, it was like watching a crowd of hyenas catching the scent of stinking flesh. Kids stopped conversations mid-sentence and lifted their heads to watch that cart roll by.
